History

The inertia of a jungle village is a dangerous thing. Before you know it your whole life has slipped by and you are still waiting there.
― Tahir Shah, House of the Tiger Kin

The Indian village has been celebrated by every poet who has admitted to having been touched by India including Rudyard Kipling and Rabindranath Tagore. Social scientists of the past wrote about Indian villages as virtually self-sufficient communities with few ties to the outside world. There is nothing unusual or novel in the city-bred person’s belief in the regenerative powers of the village. This nostalgia has been expressed since the 19th century in literary form in fiction and poetry and in political form through the slogan: `Back to the villages‘.